In 2009, I became extremely concerned with the concept of Unique Identity for various reasons. Connected with many like minded highly educated people who were all concerned.
On 18th May 2010, I started this Blog to capture anything and everything I came across on the topic. This blog with its million hits is a testament to my concerns about loss of privacy and fear of the ID being misused and possible Criminal activities it could lead to.
In 2017 the Supreme Court of India gave its verdict after one of the longest hearings on any issue. I did my bit and appealed to the Supreme Court Judges too through an On Line Petition.
In 2019 the Aadhaar Legislation has been revised and passed by the two houses of the Parliament of India making it Legal. I am no Legal Eagle so my Opinion carries no weight except with people opposed to the very concept.
In 2019, this Blog now just captures on a Daily Basis list of Articles Published on anything to do with Aadhaar as obtained from Daily Google Searches and nothing more. Cannot burn the midnight candle any longer.
"In Matters of Conscience, the Law of Majority has no place"- Mahatma Gandhi
Ram Krishnaswamy
Sydney, Australia.

Aadhaar

The UIDAI has taken two successive governments in India and the entire world for a ride. It identifies nothing. It is not unique. The entire UID data has never been verified and audited. The UID cannot be used for governance, financial databases or anything. It’s use is the biggest threat to national security since independence. – Anupam Saraph 2018

When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi

“The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right.” Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi

“There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.”-A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order.

Legal scholar Usha Ramanathan describes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says.

Good idea gone bad
I have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and today’s technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha

“What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesn’t determine who is eligible and who isn’t,” Jairam Ramesh

But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP

“I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary,” Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017.

August 24, 2017: The nine-judge Constitution Bench rules that right to privacy is “intrinsic to life and liberty”and is inherently protected under the various fundamental freedoms enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World; indeed it's the only thing that ever has"

“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden

In the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Arora, one of the senior counsel in the case, compared it to living under a general, perpetual, nation-wide criminal warrant.

Had never thought of it that way, but living in the Aadhaar universe is like living in a prison. All of us are treated like criminals with barely any rights or recourse and gatekeepers have absolute power on you and your life.

Announcing the launch of the # BreakAadhaarChainscampaign, culminating with events in multiple cities on 12th Jan. This is the last opportunity to make your voice heard before the Supreme Court hearings start on 17th Jan 2018. In collaboration with @no2uidand@rozi_roti.

UIDAI's security seems to be founded on four time tested pillars of security idiocy

1) Denial

2) Issue fiats and point finger

3) Shoot messenger

4) Bury head in sand.

God Save India

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

11016 - Aadhaar: In the eye of the privacy storm - Live Mint

Mon, Apr 10 2017. 04 10 AM IST


There is an urgent need to generate a larger conversation on privacy, which involves all stakeholders—including the consumer—and this has to be done soonest

For the last few weeks, Aadhaar, or India’s unique identity number programme, has been in the news for all the wrong reasons.

First, there was the news about some business correspondents illegally storing biometric data and misusing it.

Second, there was a (orchestrated) backlash against the government’s move to make Aadhaar mandatory for filing of income tax returns as well as for obtaining and retaining the permanent account number (PAN); which among other things will make it very difficult to elude the radar of the tax sleuth. Just remember that some 250 million PAN numbers have been issued so far and yet, there are only 40 million taxpayers.


The privacy warriors have used this moment to argue their long-standing case against Aadhaar. While no one can dispute their concerns on privacy, it is unfair to pick on Aadhaar as the sole example of such breach of privacy; indeed it has its shortcomings, as the Telangana example showed, but they don’t fall in the realm of privacy breaches.

This thing that just because it is government ordained it therefore implies that “big brother” is watching plays on our worst fears (Remember George Orwell’s gripping book: 1984). Even if it is true (personally, I hope not), it is more likely that we voluntarily put out more of our personal data in public domain—through the proliferation of social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Viber and so on—which is vulnerable to misuse.

At this stage therefore it is important to agree to the first principles of this debate.

One, let us not be a Luddite and demand that Aadhaar, which is based on sound logic, be disabled. Second, as privacy warriors point out, there is an urgent need to protect privacy of data; and this is not just important from the point of view of individuals, even companies and countries are vulnerable (hackers mostly go after institutions, which curate all kinds of information).

Nandan Nilekani, also the person who gave us Aadhaar, explains this best. In a recent interview published in The Economic Times he said, “Privacy is an all-encompassing issue because of the rapid rate of digitisation the world is seeing. Your smart phone has sensors, GPS and is generating more and more information about everything; voice-activated devices could also be recording your conversations. There’s a profusion of CCTV cameras at malls, restaurants, ATMs recording your movements. We have a broader issue on how people retain their privacy in this world.”

But this is where we run into a problem, even though there is concurrence on the need for a privacy law. For one, there is a great reluctance on the part of the government to come out with one.

A draft law was put up for conversation in the second term of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, but never saw the light of the day; in fact, they are guilty of not creating Aadhaar under a law (something that was closed out only last year and that too after the Supreme Court stepped in).

Second, it is something easier said than done. As the latest cover story (8 April) of The Economist points out: “There is no way to make computers completely safe. Software is hugely complex. Across its products, Google must manage around 2 billion lines of source code—errors are inevitable. The average program has 14 separate vulnerabilities, each of them a potential of illicit entry. Such weaknesses are compounded by the history of the Internet, in which security was an afterthought.”

But this is not to suggest that we should just be wringing our hands and forget about privacy. Absolutely not.
Instead, there is an urgent need to generate a larger conversation on privacy, which involves all stakeholders—including the consumer (so critical as we move into the era of Internet of Things like smart TVs, Fridges and so on). And this has to be done soonest.

Till then, let us desist from submitting to fear-mongering on Aadhaar.

Anil Padmanabhan is executive editor of Mint and writes every week on the intersection of politics and economics.
His Twitter handle is @capitalcalculus.
Respond to this column at anil.p@livemint.com